It's all in the wrist: A researcher tries to teach a robot how to flip a pancake.
Video screenshot by TimHornyak/CNET

How many tries does it take for a robot to screw in a lightbulb? How about flip a pancake? If the video below is any indication, IHOP won't be robotized anytime soon.

Sylvain Calinon of the Italian Institute of Technology is into teaching robots skills by first taking the bots through the steps involved. For a cooking class on pancakes, Calinon and colleagues used a seven-axis Barrett WAM robotic arm and a simulated pancake with four tracking markers.

As the video shows, the arm needs more than a bit of practice to get the right touch--it finally manages to flip a pancake into the air and catch it in the pan after about 50 tries. It seems a motion-capture system that analyzes the pancake's trajectory was essential for the right flip.

Calinon has also tried teaching the robot arm how to iron. He has even tried his demonstration technique with humanoid robots and obviously has fun doing it. He has a bizarre vid in which Fujitsu's HOAP-3 robot tries to feed a robotic doll.